Good Afternoon Parents,

As many of you have already noticed, your child brought home a new friend today (a cabbage plant)! This cabbage plant is a part of the Bonnie Plants Cabbage Program. This program is an OPTIONAL program that helps teach students the proper steps of caring for plants and helps foster a love of agriculture.

Each year, Bonnie trucks more than one million free O.S. Cross, or “oversized” cabbage plants to 3rd Grade classrooms across the country*, whose teachers have signed up for the program here. If nurtured and cared for, kids can cultivate, nurture and grow giant cabbages, some bigger than a basketball, tipping the scales, often over 40 pounds!

The program awards a $1,000 scholarship to one student in each participating state. At the end of the season, teachers from each 3rd grade participating class select the student who has grown the “best” cabbage, based on size and appearance. A digital image of the cabbage and student is submitted online and that student’s name is then entered in a random statewide drawing to win the $1,000 scholarship. State winners are randomly selected by the Commission of Agriculture, in each of 48 participating states.

Listed below is the Student Information Video that helps walk through the process of caring for their new friend. You can also visit the https://bonniecabbageprogram.com/   for more details about this program.

Have fun and start planting (when it warms up of course).

Good Evening Parents,

Thank you so much to those parents who stopped by this evening for parent teacher conferences. I loved meeting with some of you face to face today to discuss your child’s progress. If at anytime you would like a conference, please never hesitate to ask. I’m here to help!

In regards to math homework, today your child completed Module Five Lesson 10. During this lesson we discovered how to compare fractions. For tonight’s homework we ask that you complete problems 1-2D and 3-4C. If you need any additional help please see the video below. I have also updated the Math Help and Links page to include the math homework pages electronically and extra parent tip sheets for each topic. Please use as a reference.

Good Evening Parents,

Tomorrow your child will be taking home their report cards from class. Please make sure to look over this report card tomorrow and return the envelope signed. If you are attending tomorrow’s parent teacher conference, you will receive the report card at the conference. Listed below is the updated parent teacher conference schedule. As always, if you are interested in having a conference and your name is not listed below, please feel free to email or reach out to me.

Hopefully you are all enjoying this beautiful Tuesday!

4:00 Farhat

4:20 Mustful

4:40  Nasser

5:00   

5:20

5:40 Casares

6:00   Jomaa

6:20   Kreger

6:40   Habhab

On Wednesday we will be having Parent Teacher Conferences. These parent teacher conferences are only required by those parents who received an invitation. If you are interested in having a conference, but did not receive an invitation please just let me know and we can work something out. I do have two available time slots on Wednesday, but if those times do not work for you we can schedule for a different day.

If you can not make your time, let me know as soon as possible so that I we can make up your time.

Thank you!

4:00 Farhat

4:20 Mustful

4:40  Nasser

5:00   

5:20

5:40 Casares

6:00   Jomaa

6:20   Kreger

6:40   Habhab

Your child will be bringing home a permission slip today to visit the dentist here at school!  If you are interested please return the permission slip.  If you already have a dentist no worries please recycle the permission slip.

The mobile dentist will be in the building on Monday, April 22 from 8:30-3:00.

You can also sign up your child online at….

www.MySchoolDentist.com   complete the form to allow your child to be seen by the in-school dentist.

Before break we discussed the impact of the assembly line on car manufacturing. In class we watched two videos about the assembly line. Several students in class were interested in watching them at home, and had asked if I could share them. Please enjoy these videos at home! They are “wheely” fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPzLBSBzPI

Today in class we discussed how to represent a fraction using a number bond. Students are to complete problems (1-3 and 5) . If this concept is somewhat challenging, please see the video below for help

Welcome back from spring break! I hope you all had a restful, safe, and fun week off of school. I’m happy to see that so many families participated in the Zearn and Reading Challenges over break. Your child will be coming home with a little prize tomorrow if they had completed this challenge. Way to go families!

The weather isn’t the only thing that’s heating up this week. Room 208 is getting prepped and ready to go for our M-STEP test. Over the course of the next few weeks, in class we will go over test strategies, responding to short answer questions, and how to close read passages. Please make sure to talk with you child about some of the strategies we are learning in class.

In addition, please encourage your child to complete their Zearn lessons at home. The weekly goal is to try and complete 4 lessons a week. On Zearn we are starting Geometry. Geometry  is a concept that is present on M-STEP, but will not be taught until after the test with Eurkea math. By having your child complete these Zearn lessons, they are learning the content before we get to it. That will ultimately help them on their M-STEP test.  So please keep encouraging your child to check out Zearn.

In addition to those reminders, listed below are some of the concepts we are working on in class. Make sure to check them out!

Reading- Close reading with nonfiction passages, analyzing main idea and detail, and nonfiction text features (how do the features help you understand the text better).

Writing- Short answer responses and narrative writing

Math- Representing parts of one whole as fractions with number bonds, building and writing fractions greater than one whole, and comparing fractions.

Social Studies- Beginning our Economics of Michigan unit. Analyzing resources found in Michigan, economic activities in Michigan, and understanding scarcity/opportunity cost of an economic decision.

Science- 

A couple of weeks ago your child learned about how people used selection to change an animal’s traits, such as creating new breeds of dogs. This week we saw how selection isn’t always caused by human beings: sometimes other, non-human factors can cause selection to happen.

In our lesson, we introduced the true story of two lizard species in Florida. (If you’re curious, you can read an adult-level version of the story here: https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-evolution-green-brown-lizards-20141101-story.html)

The change in these lizards is an example of “natural selection”— a big idea that your child will revisit over the course of their science education. In our lesson we did not use the term “natural selection,” but this example laid the foundation for later understanding of the concept.

Spelling- content words: fraction, whole, caption, economics, survive

word patterns (homophones): their, they’re, wear, bored, and four

***see spellingcity for fun games and ways to practice the spelling words***

Leader in Me- Don’t Prejudge Others: Habit 5 teachers that everyone is unique-we all have different experiences, abilities, and perspectives. They key concept “Don’t Prejudge Others” reminds us to Seek First to Understand. Ask your child, “What might you miss if you prejudge others?”

Upcoming Events 

Tuesday- ELG tutoring and PBIS Reward

Wednesday- Parent Teacher Conferences 4-7pm (invitation only)

Thursday- ELG tutoring and Retakes for last units test 8am.

Friday- First Class

Good Evening Parents,

Today your child has brought home a couple of items from our Eureka Math program. The most important item that has been brought home today is the Module 4 End-of-Module Assessment. Your child’s assessment has been graded using the Eureka math rubric. Remember that each question is individually graded based upon the rubric. So when you look at your child’s test, you will see an individual fraction score for each question. To make the overall test easier to understand, I did place a 1-4 score just like our report card grading. 1 being exceeding expectations and 4 being the below average. If your child has received a 3-4 they may choose to retake their math assessment the week we get back from break. Please let me know in advance if this is something that you would like to do.

Listed below is the Module 4 End-of-Module Assessment Rubric

Mod. 4 End-of-Module Assessment Rubric

In addition your child has taken home their learn book, fluency book, and succeed book from the past modules. Feel free to complete any of the problems we didn’t do as supplemental practice. Your child has received new books for the remainder of the school year.

As always, please let me know if there are any issues.

WOW! Can you believe that we are only a few days away from April?! Time flies by! This week we are working on wrapping up our third card marking. Since we are focusing on some of our end of unit assessments, there will be no spelling words this week.

In addition, to make things a little bit easier we will be taking two quizzes to wrap up our science unit. Our first quiz will be held on Wednesday. Please make sure to take a look at your child’s study guides that went home on Friday for extra help. You can also find them under the Unit 3 study guides tab.

We are also wrapping up our March is Reading Month activities. Make sure to check out our calendar for more details and information about our last week.

Reading- Informational text study. Focusing on identifying the main idea within the text and the supporting details that help guide the main idea. We also will begin looking at nonfiction text features and how they help readers understand the text at a deeper level.

Writing- Citing evidence within a short answer question and developing a narrative writing draft.

Math- Module 4 end-of-module assessment on Monday, and then beginning our module on Fractions as numbers on a number line. Discussing how we partition a whole into parts.

Science- 

In science this week we learned about how people create new breeds of animals by selecting
certain traits and only having those animals have babies. Your child learned in particular how the earliest dogs were medium-sized and wolf-like, but using selective breeding, we managed to get the many different dog breeds, from small dogs to big dogs, spotted dogs to plain dogs.

What makes selection possible is the fact that no two individuals are ever exactly alike–there are always small differences, and yet parents do pass on most of their traits to their offspring. You can help reinforce this learning at home by helping your child to notice these small differences in physical traits between siblings, cousins, and other family members, as well as to contemplate which traits have been passed on from one generation to the next.

Social Studies- Discussing the growth of the automobile industry and the push/pull factors of immigration in Michigan.

Leader in Me- Attentive listening is a key concept of Habit 5: Seek First to Understand then to be Understood. Attentive listening means we listen with our eyes, ears, and heart; we try to understand from the other person’s viewpoint; and we check to ensure we understood the message. Make sure to ask your child, “What do attentive listeners do?”

Upcoming Events 

Tuesday- ELG tutoring

Wednesday- College Day: Wear your favorite university’s apparel for reading month.  Science quiz, Smencil sale,  and team sports after-school.

Thursday- Beach day at school. Bring a beach towel and “chill” with a good book. Students will do a read-in in class. So make sure to bring your towel. Social studies test and ELG after-school.

Friday- Battle of the Books Assembly

April 1-5- No School Spring Break

April 10- Parent Teacher Conferences